


a sam flynn metapost

by plingo_kat



Series: Tron Meta [1]
Category: Tron: Legacy (2010)
Genre: Meta, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-26
Updated: 2012-09-26
Packaged: 2017-11-15 02:04:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,974
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/521967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plingo_kat/pseuds/plingo_kat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As it states in the title. I figured it'd be nice to keep all my ramblings about the Tron universe in an easily accessible place, instead of scattered all over tumblr.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a sam flynn metapost

So I’ve recently rediscovered a love for all things Tron, most notably _Tron: Legacy_ because let’s face it – we’re all in this at least partway for the pretty pretty graphics, amirite? Also, I have an unrepentant Clu 2.0 problem, but that isn’t the focus of this post. (I might do another metapost for Clu later.) Instead, we’re going to talk about Sam.

Let me preface this by saying: Disney, _wtf are you doing_. There are a lot of problematic points in the plotline and background of Legacy, not to mention all the discrepancies in the various tie-ins. (Tron: Uprising, anybody? Not that I don’t love it, but.) Disregarding all that, though, we still don’t _actually_ see very much of what makes Sam tick. Which is why I’m making a metapost about him.

Note: any and all opinions expressed here are due to my own headcanon/interpretations of canon – you’re free to take it or leave it as you like.

I’ll start at the beginning. One of the biggest events in this movie is the disappearance of Kevin Flynn; it’s the impetus for all the events that happen after, and shapes Sam’s character in a major way. So guess what my first topic of discussion is going to be? That’s right:

**_ daddy issues, or: the disappearance of kevin flynn _ **

Kevin is absolutely young!Sam’s hero. He’s right there fighting in the Grid with Tron and Clu, making a better world; he’s famous and cool; he isn’t actually there that much, which makes it easier to idolize him (familiarity breeds contempt, etc. etc.); and he’s Sam’s _dad_. Sam _loves_ him.

> _ “We’re always on the same team.”  _  
> ~~NOOOOO MY FEEEEEEELS~~

So Kevin disappears, and Sam doesn’t believe that he’s gone. (“He’s coming. He _promised_.”) He lost his mother at a young age, and now his father is gone too. His life is pretty miserable, right? The rest of the world also seems to get ‘worse.’ (i.e. the company is in upheaval and then moves away from Kevin’s ideals/goals, and for kids school and their parents’/guardian’s lives are pretty much their world.) Sam never really gets over his father’s disappearance. Proof of this:

1\. On the roof of the Encom building, he mutters, “Hey dad, how you doing?”

2\. In the scene where Alan visits Sam to tell him about the page he got, Sam is the one to bring up finding his father like nothing’s changed. He’s not as over it as he says he is.

3\. He went to caltech (his father’s alma mater) and is a computer programmer.

But what does this _mean_?

1\. Well, Sam’s definitely got some abandonment issues. In the movie we get to see how he pushes other people away so that he doesn’t get hurt when he becomes too invested in them (for more on this see the _alan and sam_ section).

2\. Sam finds it hard to create and maintain significant, lasting relationships. 

2a.The closest thing we see to him having a friend in _Legacy_ is Marv. Marv is a dog. Sam talks to his dog like crazy cat ladies talk to their cats.

2b. The most important character interaction he has is with Quorra, somebody he meets halfway through the movie. HE KNOWS HER FOR LIKE, TWO HOURS, YOU GUYS.

3\. We never see his grandparents again after the first scene with young!Sam in bed. ~~Are they dead? Does Sam just not talk much to them anymore? Is the “Sam, come back!” echo where young!Sam on his bike that transitions into current!Sam on his motorcycle an indication that Sam pushed them away too?~~ (edit: they died, as various people pointed out to me. Whoops, I guess I forgot. This still applies for the time immediately after Kevin’s disappearance though.)

4\. He enacts crazy stunts in an effort to either:

4a. live up to his father’s legacy

4b. shatter the idea that he’s living up to his father’s legacy

4c. feel closer to his father

So basically, Sam is afraid of everybody leaving him and being alone, but he makes sure that he’s alone by pushing away the people who want to be close to him. He tries to break out of his father’s shadow even though deep down he _does_ want to be associated with Kevin Flynn in any way he can. He’s a mess of self-contradictions, and at the beginning of the movie we can tell that he’s been kind of on a slow downward spiral for a while.

But he wasn’t always like that. He used to be a pretty cheerful boy. Which brings me to my next topic:

**_ alan and sam: love, intimacy, and authority issues _ **

After Kevin disappears, Sam is taken care of by his grandparents and Kevin’s best friend, Alan Bradley. (Oh Alan, ilu. Also Bruce Boxleitner, UNF. I could write a whole other post about how Kevin’s disappearance affected Alan, but I won’t. For now.)

> _ “When I was twelve I really appreciated that surrogate father thing, but come on. I got it under control now.” _

Sam closes himself off from most interpersonal relationships. We can see how Sam and Alan’s relationship used to be more open during the short scene they have together near the beginning of the movie. Examples:

1\. Alan lets himself into Sam’s home without any warning whatsoever.

2\. Sam is comfortable with casual half-nudity in Alan’s presence, and offers him refreshment (even though Alan showed up unannounced).

3\. Alan’s awkward punch on Sam’s shoulder, indicating that they probably used to have regular physical contact but Sam distanced himself, and now Alan doesn’t really know how to reinitiate that contact.

3a. They sit really close together on the couch.

Sam loves Alan, but he resents him too. Who is Alan to try and take the place of his father? Nobody can be as good as Kevin Flynn, as much of a hero, as amazing of a dad. And so Sam lashes out, thinking: _if my dad can’t be there to tell me what to do, nobody can_. Which leads me to:

**_ reckless behavior, or: adrenaline is good for the soul _ **

Sam is an adrenaline junky. He rides a motorcycle (more dangerous than a car), evades the police when he speeds, parachutes out of helicopters for kicks, breaks into multimillion (billion?) dollar companies in order to steal corporate secrets (that kind of really is what he did), jumps off the roof of Encom Tower, laughs hysterically when hanging onto the roof of a swerving taxi.

Well, okay, you say. Lots of people are adrenaline junkies. I love roller coasters too.

But! Sam uses his activities to make a statement. And that statement is: _fuck you_. It’s: _I do what I want_. It’s: _if you’re going to be unfair to me, screw you, I don’t have to play by the rules_.

Sam absolutely has a jail record. He lives in a converted shipping container, doesn’t have a job (that we know of; I could totally see him as a bartender or something), dropped out of college and never goes back (not due to lack of money or anything like that, just because), and commits felonies in his spare time. He takes the anger and frustration and helplessness he feels (at his father, at his circumstances, at himself) and aims them outwards, because it can’t be his fault, at can’t be his fathers’ that his life is fucked up. He refuses to let that be an option.

So Sam is more than a little fucked up, more than a little bit resigned that his lot in life probably isn’t going to be that great. And while he could get his life together and take charge of Encom, he doesn’t have the motivation to do so. And then he discovers the Grid.

**_ tales of the grid, or: why the fuck does sam not have a mental breakdown when faced with the reality of a digital world (with bonus round: kevin flynn is one crazy mofo) _ **

Am I the only one who thinks that both Sam’s and his father’s reaction(s) to finding out that computers contain entire cities is… disproportionate? Like, it should be MIND-BLOWING. Instead Kevin just accepts it all in stride even when he figures out it _isn’t_ a dream, and Sam is all “okay, I’m in the Grid, what now?”

> _ Sam’s realization that he’s in the Grid: “Oh man, this is happening.”  _   
> ~~WOW SAM TELL US HOW YOU REALLY FEEL~~

Sam’s acceptance is at least partially understandable. He’s in shock, reacting to the events around him. More importantly, he’s had time to get used to the idea of the Grid; his father’s bedtime stories give him context for what’s happening to him. (Kevin? Not so much. I’m just going with the supposition that Kevin is cray cray. In _so many_ different ways.)

See, the thing is, Sam has lived outside of ‘normal’ society for most of his life. First as a child billionaire/orphan, and then by choice after he gained autonomy. (I’m not completely certain about timeline, but this probably happened after he quit college? Idk.) So his frames of reference are a little bit skewed, which makes the Grid easier to accept.

And of course there’s the ever-present tie to his father – tales of the Grid = bedtime stories with Kevin Flynn, which are all positive associations in Sam’s memory.

**_ separate ways, or: letting go of kevin flynn  _ ** ~~ahaha you see what I did there~~

Okay, so now we’ve got a picture of Sam in the beginning/first half of the movie. But how does he change? Most really interesting parts of movies are about character development, after all. (Tbh, I’m much more fascinated by Sam before _Legacy_ as a solitary character, because after _Legacy_ he’s mostly defined by his relationships with other characters.) Over the course of his time in the Grid, a lot of uncertainties and issues from his past are resolved.

1\. He finally knows what happened to his father, and while not perfectly reconciled, the two have expressed their mutual love for one another. 

2\. He and his father work “on the same team.” 

3\. He has finally been on the Grid. 

4\. He has assumed a level of responsibility, even if it wasn’t entirely by his own choice – for Quorra, for stopping Clu.

For a movie supposedly about Tron and evidently about Sam Flynn, everything is pretty much _actually_ about Kevin. The defining moment of Sam’s character development is that he figures out what happens to his father and can finally start to put to rest the uncertainly and turbulence that caused in his childhood. Clu went wrong because of Kevin; Clu was _created_ by Kevin. Kevin saved Quorra and tasked Sam with taking care of her. Kevin’s friendship with Alan sustained Alan’s involvement with Sam and Encom.

Sam’s character development over the course of _Legacy_ is at once both very obvious and very subtle. We never really see a change in his motivations/goals (figure out what’s going on, find his dad, go home). What we do see, however, is a change in his relationships and how he interacts with the world around him. At the beginning of the movie he’s cut off, isolated, alone – either by his own choice or because of circumstance. By the end of _Legacy_ , he’s got a fast friendship and a possible growing romantic relationship with Quorra, he’s taken responsibility of Encom (his father’s legacy!), and reaches out to Alan.

Sam Flynn is fascinating character both before and after the movie, and there’s some pretty fantastic fanfic that explores him floating around on the internet. (I totally lied about finding him more interesting before _Legacy_ than after, btw. When he’s interacting with other characters from the franchise, _that’s_ when I find him most interesting, and that happens during/after _Legacy_.)


End file.
